Rudyard Kipling

We think of Europe in 1914 as a continent all too eager for war — volunteers jamming recruiting offices, festooned soldiers joyfully marching to battle and delirious crowds waving them off. To a significant extent, that vision is true, and for a time the Great War brought domestic unity and shared purpose to European nations deeply divided by class, gender and politics. In the euphoria of what everyone from emperors to foot soldiers believed would be a short, glorious and cleansing war that, in the Social Darwinism of the age, could only make...

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